Colourblind

Unbelievable, yesterday Mohamed’s cousins showed up to start building the wall around the balconies and veranda. After a few weeks of “bokra” (tomorrow).

This bunch of cousins is the eldest brother, Chero, employing his younger brothers and some friends. In the morning, he is working with them. In the afternoon, he leaves to go to work. He has got a job paid by the government. I do not know what exactly.

The productivity in the morning is therefore much higher than in the afternoon. Yesterday they all left at 2 o’clock.

On such days, Chero looses money instead of gaining some, as he pays a fixed fee per day to his employees . Instead of being well off, he is in need for money all the time. And he could be a rich man. He and his employees are much in demand. Every day people are coming by to ask when they will start working in their house.

Customer satisfaction is not the objective. Keeping the family employed and having food on the table is and meanwhile having some fun, because the evenings they spend playing cards and the weekends they regularly go on a trip together to the coast or somewhere else.

About 10 days ago, the blinds were delivered. Instead of being dark red, as I asked for, they were brown. After having asked why they were a different colour, first the excuse was that the colour I asked for was not in stock. The following day he said for him the blinds were red. After having persisted several times that I did not want brown but red, he called the supplier of the aluminium in Aleppo and after much discussion he promised to deliver red blind on Saturday.

On Monday 8 o’clock in the evening he arrived with red blinds. I was much relieved, because all the time I feared he would come back with the brown ones to try to convince me again to take them after all. It took him until midnight to install them. It was done with much care

The day before yesterday, 6 weeks after having ordered it, the closet for the sleeping room arrived. It was dark brown and not reddish brown, as I asked for. It was returned immediately. This issue is not settled yet.

More olive picking

And the new olive oil has arrived. Everybody relieved. The result of 10 days of hard work is 400 liter. This is for 1 family only.

The consumption of olive oil is very high in the villages around here, contrary to the city. I’ve seen people drink it and lick their fingers as if it were honey.

As if we couldn’t get enough of picking olives, we have been helping out Mohamed’s youngest brother the past 3 days. He is living in the city and married to an “Aleppina”. His wive and daughters do not pick olives. This is why he asks his brothers and sisters to help him out.

The sun is still shining from sunrise to sunset. No clouds.

After sunrise, it is much colder, and it is not possible to live without heating anymore. I’ve bought a super deluxe stove working on diesel with electric ignition and turbo. When the turbo is put on hot air is blown. There are 2 levels of turbo. 1 stove is enough to heat 100 m².
;<BR>All visitors admire this stove, as they have the small round manual version. When they hear it is 4 times more expensive than the usual model, they cannot believe someone spends that much money on a stove.

I still haven’t figured out the set of values. It is totally different from mine. Food, water, electricity, heating, etc. are necessities for which I spend what is needed or more. On the other hand, I don’t need the most fancy washing machine, I can live without television, etc. And that the locals find very strange.

Here are many houses in which there is no running water, but they have satellite television. Many days there is no bread nor vegetables (forget the meat), but they have a big screen television.

It is a different mentality which many Europeans have too, but here it seems to be the rule with very few exceptions.

Today we are levelling the entrance towards the back of the house. We will not only have a garden, but also camping facilities for the many adventurous travellers with campers and tents that come into the country via Turkey. A project for the winter.

Out and about

Usually, the olives are harvested in October. This year, everybody started late due to Ramadan and the mandatory Eid following it. After the Eid, we had more than a week of heavy storms and rain showers. So, it was only last week that most of us started.

Harvesting olives is, as you can expect in Syria, a manual job. Enough free workers at hand in almost every family. No fancy tools, such as ladders to work on the big trees. An old empty barrel will do for the lower extremities and the highest hanging olives are collected by climbing the tree.

Climbing trees is a piece of cake for the locals. They prefer to do it on bare feet. After having observed their acrobacy for a few days, I tried it myself and I succeeded. Much slower than the others and with a pair of old comfortable Nikes. I immediately gained respect from all present.

And there were present, as it was Friday (weekend for the Muslims). On the days off, everybody joins in. The children are brought along and gather to play with each other the whole day, except for the babies that are put on a blanket.

The mothers with young children cannot work in peace. As they have at least 3 or 4, they are regularly interrupted by crying children that need to be attended to.

The most favourite activity of the youngsters is making fires. You can be sure that when they are not crying and making fun that they are running around looking for twigs to burn.

And there are heaps of it. While the women are collecting the olives, the men are cutting away branches to give some breathing space for the remaining ones. Modern inventions, such as a handsaw and scissors, are available.. Only one of each for the entire group. And then, it the children come in handy. They go and find these tools whenever Dad or an uncle is yelling for it.

The children also carry around the water and go and find some whenever the bottles are emptied quickly on a sunny day, and we had some sunny hot days during the last week.

One of the fires that they keep burning is used to cook potatoes, tomatoes and onions which taste 10 times better than when at home.

At sunset the olives are transported by tractor together with the tools and the human resources.

Yesterday, we picked the last olives at noon and today they were taken to the olive factory to have the local gold extracted from them. Tomorrow we will have a new supply for the coming year.

While waiting for it, we are using the last drops of last year’s production to heal our soaring hands.

No longer with us

Last Saturday, Dzjidde died. I visited him On Wednesday to wish him a “Good Eid”. On Friday night he was suddenly very ill. In the end it was his heart that failed.

All the children and a lot of cousins joined him on his last night. They dug the grave on Saturday afternoon and had him buried (Muslims have to buried within 24 hours). Some white stones destined for the wall surrounding the balconies and veranda in my apartment were used as a grave stone.

A big tent was set up in the garden and during the next 4 days masses of visitors came by to convey the family their condolences.

A great loss to all of us. Also to me, because he was my best friend around here. I enjoyed his company, although it was hard to communicate with him. Not as much because of my lack of knowledge of the Arabic language, but because he was hard hearing.

During Ramadan, I was once with him alone at the table when the muezzin announced the end of the day. He did not hear it and continued waiting. It was obvious that he was very hungry. I told him to eat, but he did not hear what I was saying. I started to sign language, but in vain. 15 minutes later, his daughter arrived and all was well. He started eating.

The last time I visited him, he was all alone in the house. After some time, he asked me to push him in his wheelchair outside on the veranda which I did. From behind his back I asked him where. He heard and indicated where. I followed his instructions and again asked him from behind his back whether “this was OK”. And he confirmed. I am still amazed about that.

He asked me to bring on the cookies. There were 2 kinds. After having eaten both varieties. He told me that 1 variety was old and fed them to the cats telling me to eat the other kind.

After 1,5 hours I left him and he wished me a safe trip home holding a white rose in his hand.

He loved smelling flowers and herbs, often day dreaming and smiling as if the smell brought back good memories from long ago.